Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

“No. I still believe there need to be controls.”

“In theory, but not where you're concerned.”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“Tell me, then: Why do you want a handgun?”

“For protection.”

“Really? Protection from what?”

“That's my business.”

“It's mine, too, if I'm to be your supplier.”

Dix hesitated. Then he said, “I have reason to believe that my life is in danger, that I'm being stalked. That's as much as I'm willing to tell you.”

“Why would anyone stalk a man like you?”

“I don't know.”

“You do know the stalker's identity?”

“No, I don't.”

“Invisible enemy, Mallory?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds paranoid to me. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like the paranoia you liberals are always ascribing to men who hold my beliefs. Gun nuts, the so-called lunatic fringe.”

Dix said carefully, “I'm sure you're enjoying the hell out of this, Czernecki. But spare me the irony. I wouldn't be here, compromising my beliefs, begging favors, if I weren't hurting and desperate. You must realize that.”

“Of course.”

“Will you help me, then?”

“I haven't decided. I want to think about it for a while.”

“How long?”

“I live near the campus,” Czernecki said, “and I generally go home for lunch. I'm going today at one. If I do decide to help you, I'll have a package for you when I return at two o'clock.”

“All right, fair enough. How much?”

“We'll discuss that if and when. Any preference as to type and caliber?”

“Something small and not too heavy.”

“Small-caliber weapons don't have much stopping power.”

“I wouldn't feel comfortable with anything larger than a thirty-eight.”

“Of course you wouldn't.”

The air in the cramped space was stagnant, too-warm, tainted with the sweet smell of Czernecki's cologne. Dix felt a little sick to his stomach. He said, “Two o'clock, then,” and made motions to leave.

“No, don't go yet,” Czernecki said. “I have a few more questions for you.”

“I'd rather not answer any more questions—”

“I'd rather you did.”

“All right. Ask them.”

“This stalking business. Is it related to your wife's death?”

Damn you! Dix thought. “No,” he lied.

“And her death was an accident?”

“Yes.”

“My condolences, by the way.”

“Thanks so much.”

“Under the circumstances, after such a tragic loss, I don't blame you for taking an aggressive position with this new trouble. I would do the same if I were in your shoes.”

Dix said nothing.

“The police, I suppose, haven't been much help?”

“There isn't much they can do in a case like this.”

“No. And self-protection is a constitutional as well as a God-given right. You agree with that, in theory at least?”

“I agree with it.”

“But to what length? To the death?”

“I'm not sure what—”

“If I sell you a handgun, and you have occasion to use it against an enemy, would you shoot to kill? Could you take a human life?”

“If I had no other choice.”

“Cold-bloodedly, if that was the only choice?”

“Yes.”

“You're certain of that? Absolutely certain?”

“I'm certain.”

“Then welcome to the real world, Mallory,” Czernecki said. “Guns don't kill people—people kill people. And sometimes fighting violence with violence is the only solution. Now maybe you see the distinctions.”

Dix saw them, all right. He saw them all too well. But what Czernecki didn't understand was that there had been no fundamental adjustment in his way of thinking. He believed as passionately as ever that if Charles Czernecki and his ilk had their way, they would help turn the real world into a nightmare place of ruptured freedom, atavistic violence as an accepted societal norm. The decision he'd made applied to him alone. He was scared, trapped by circumstances beyond his comprehension and control, driven to do what he felt he had to to survive, and these things made him weak, made him sell out on a personal level. But, by God, it didn't put him in Czernecki's camp. It didn't make what he was doing right .

The brief visit with Eileen left Cecca bleak and depressed. She'd been prepared for the worst, had tried to erect defenses to guard her own tender feelings, but imagining what Eileen would look, act, and sound like didn't match the reality of seeing her, listening to her. So pale, lying there; the stunned eyes and minimal awareness; the slurred voice and disjointed speech patterns. Tired. Stoned. Sad and lost . It had been a shock and it had shaken her. Even through an effort of will she hadn't been able to hold back the tears.

“Mrs. Harrell's mind is bruised,” her attending physician, Dr. Mulford, had told Cecca beforehand. He'd insisted on seeing her first, to warn her that under no circumstances was she to mention the explosion, or what had happened to Ted and Bobby and Kevin. “She's in a great deal of emotional pain. She doesn't remember anything about that night, won't allow herself to even though at a deeper level she knows she has to eventually. She's afraid to face the enormity of it. But I don't think she'll let herself suffer that way for long. The wife and mother parts of her are too strong; she'll have to face the tragedy in order to find out what happened to her family. That's when the healing process can begin. But the decision to face it must be hers, must come from within.”

“You couldn't even tell her that Kevin is out of danger?” Cecca had found that out from Eileen's brother earlier. And thank God for that much, at least.

“No. Not until she's ready to accept the rest of it.”

Cecca drove from the hospital to Better Lands. Work, the universal panacea. The Hagopians, minus their two children, were waiting for her—willing and eager to make a $250,000 offer on the Messner property in Brookside Park, just as she'd anticipated.

She cared and she didn't care; mainly it gave her something involving to do. She took longer than usual preparing the offer sheet, going over the disclosure statement and other documents with them. Their credit appeared to be very good. And they intended to make a down payment of $135,000, thanks to the sale of a home they'd owned in Salina and to a cash loan from Mrs. Hagopian's father; financing for the balance shouldn't be a problem. If Elliot cooperated, it ought to be a done deal.

She reached Elliot at the university right after the Hagopians left. He seemed delighted; and he wasn't bothered by the size of the offer. “I was afraid I had an albatross on my neck,” he said. “Of course I'd like a little more than two-fifty. I don't suppose these people would go two-sixty-five?”

“I doubt it,” Cecca said. “Two fifty seemed to be about their maximum.”

“Well, let me think about it for a couple of hours. I have a one o'clock class, but I can cut it short. I could be at your office around two.”

“Fine.”

“You're a wizard, Francesca. Nobody else could have sold that pile of mine so quickly.”

Right. A backward ten-year-old could have sold that pile to the Hagopians. But she said, “It was a pleasure. I'll see you at two.”

Elliot arrived at five minutes past. The first thing he did was to grab her by the shoulders and hug her. She endured it stiffly; casual hugs, casual touching—especially by men—had always turned her off. When he let go of her and stepped back, grinning in his bearish way, she could see the heat in his eyes. It annoyed her—more than it would have under better circumstances. It wasn't exactly sexual harassment, but this was a business office and theirs was a business relationship, and it was plain that he was thinking of her as a woman, how her body had felt fitted against his. Did he leer at his students that way? Try to seduce girls almost as young as Amy? Probably. He was the type. Earthy as hell, in spite of his intelligence. To the Elliot Messners of the world, there was never a question of mind over hard-on.